Chapter 58
Chapter 58
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: Fifth Level of Qi Refining
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"The new fish fry are here. Isn't it about time to settle up the Clear Spirit Grass for the last batch of Green Scaled Fish?"
Xiao Hei squinted its beady eyes, grinned its wide mouth, and sent a telepathic message.
"What about the little green fish you were raising?"
"How many of them became spirit beasts?"
Chen Jianghe shot Xiao Hei a look. It was still thinking about the Clear Spirit Grass reward promised two years ago.
All the little green fish were dead.
With no spirit stones, there could be no reward.
"They're floating up there... That damned demonic cultivator! He owes me two stalks of Clear Spirit Grass. No, at least three!"
Xiao Hei said angrily, marking a debt against Lan Tianxiang's name.
"Stop complaining. With so many spirit energy-infused dead fish to eat, the little green fish will have a good harvest by the end of next year."
"I'll reward you with three stalks of Clear Spirit Grass then."
Chen Jianghe generously offered Xiao Hei a tangible promise, making it so happy that it performed a roll on the spot.
Afterwards, Xiao Hei happily went to supervise the little green fish, ensuring they ate in a regulated manner. Otherwise, some of them would surely eat themselves to death.
Chen Jianghe, on the other hand, steered his boat toward Port Number One to buy daily necessities.
Now that the crisis was over, he no longer needed to take Abstinence Pills. The half-full gourd of Abstinence Pills could be saved for when he truly needed them.
When one wasn't well-off, one had to live frugally.
Thrift was key.
After buying his supplies and returning, he resumed his monotonous yet meaningful life.
Every day, he spent a fixed six hours meditating and cultivating, using the remaining time to draw spiritual talismans.
In the first half of the year, he used thirty-two sheets of talisman paper and produced thirteen Water Arrow Talismans. His success rate had improved slightly, but not significantly.
According to his plan, he would only attempt to draw other water-element talismans after his success rate with the Water Arrow Talisman reached sixty percent, which was still a ways off.
However, Chen Jianghe wasn't in a hurry. He had plenty of time and was confident he could eventually grind the success rate for Water Arrow Talismans above sixty percent.
A month passed.
Yu Daniu sent a letter with good news for Chen Jianghe: Yun Xiaoniu had been tested and found to possess spiritual roots, and four-element pseudo spiritual roots at that.
For this, the Yun Clan directly rewarded Yu Daniu with twenty spirit stones and increased his annual stipend to six spirit stones.
This already surpassed the stipend of the Yun Clan's branch family disciples, showing that Yu Daniu's status had risen considerably.
In response, Chen Jianghe sent back a letter of congratulations.
A few days later, Zhou Miaoyun sent a letter asking about the detailed situation at Mirror Moon Lake. She must have heard some rumors.
Chen Jianghe didn't hide anything and told her what he knew about the Yun Clan's recent circumstances.
—
Time flies like an arrow; three years passed in the blink of an eye.
Under the night sky, Mirror Moon Lake was exceptionally quiet. The countless stars reflected on the water's surface, creating a vast sea of stars.
A full moon was mirrored on the lake, and as a fish flicked its tail, the reflection shattered into ripples that spread outward.
Chen Jianghe sat at the bow of his boat. He swallowed a Spirit Accumulating Pill, and a faint green light emanated from his body—an astral shield that contained the pill's medicinal power.
He rapidly circulated the Guiyuan True Water Art, absorbing and refining the medicinal power of the Spirit Accumulating Pill.
As a spiritual light flashed in his dantian, a large amount of spirit energy surged into his body. It combined with the pill's medicinal power, transformed into magical power, and flowed into his sea of qi. His cultivation had broken through once again.
"Thirty-four years old. It took nearly five years to break through to the fifth level of Qi Refining. That doesn't seem too slow."
Chen Jianghe stopped his cultivation, a smile touching his lips.
During these three years, he had bought another three Spirit Accumulating Pills. Adding the two he had purchased before, he had taken a total of five.
Each Spirit Accumulating Pill had, on average, advanced his cultivation by a little over a year. Combined with his five years of practice, it was equivalent to eleven years of hard cultivation.
This was much faster than the cultivation speed of a normal five-element miscellaneous spiritual root holder.
Because he had ample cultivation resources and the abundant spirit energy of the inner waters, he had managed to shorten eleven years to less than five.
Moreover, it wasn't just Chen Jianghe's cultivation that had improved. A year ago, his talisman-crafting skills had reached the level of a low-grade Talisman Master.
At the age of thirty-two, his success rate for Water Arrow Talismans had reached over sixty percent, so he began attempting to draw other water-element spiritual talismans.
In the end, it took him a year. At thirty-three, he successfully drew five types of low-grade water-element spiritual talismans, becoming a low-grade Talisman Master.
Water Arrow Talisman, Cloud Rain Talisman, Water Escape Talisman, Water Repelling Talisman, Water Binding Talisman.
The Cloud Rain Talisman couldn't really be considered a low-grade spiritual talisman, as it was of little use to cultivators and was mainly sold to mortals.
However, because its price reached one spirit stone, it was barely classified as a low-grade spiritual talisman.
Once a Cloud Rain Talisman was used, dark clouds would gather in a five-li radius and it would rain for two hours.
This was equivalent to the power of a third-level Qi Refining cultivator casting the Minor Cloud Rain Art three times.
Casting the Minor Cloud Rain Art three times would be enough to exhaust all the magical power of a third-level Qi Refining cultivator.
Of course, even among mortals, few people bought Cloud Rain Talismans, so its status among low-grade spiritual talismans was extremely precarious.
It was also because they were hard to sell that Chen Jianghe only drew two Cloud Rain Talismans before stopping.
After all, even the Yun Clan's spiritual talisman shop offered a buyback price of only thirty spirit sand grains for a Cloud Rain Talisman.
That was basically buying it back at thirty percent of the market price.
And even that was considered quite generous.
The buyback price from the stalls at Port Number One was as low as twenty spirit sand grains; they practically didn't consider it a low-grade spiritual talisman at all.
The effect of the Water Repelling Talisman was obvious. Even if one's magical power was depleted, using it would allow one to hide underwater for ten days. It was worth one spirit stone.
The Water Binding Talisman, as its name suggested, was a binding-type water art. It could condense three water chains to trap an enemy and was worth one spirit stone.
To cater to the market, Chen Jianghe mostly drew Water Arrow Talismans and Water Escape Talismans.
The Water Escape Talisman, in particular, was a best-selling low-grade spiritual talisman.
Its price was also extremely high. A single Water Escape Talisman had a market price of three spirit stones, and the buyback price was eighty-five percent of that.
However, the difficulty of drawing a Water Escape Talisman was much higher than a Water Arrow Talisman. Chen Jianghe's success rate for them was only twenty percent.
In the first year, Chen Jianghe used fifty-seven sets of talisman paper and successfully created twenty-three Water Arrow Talismans.
Adding the thirteen he had before, he sold a total of thirty-six Water Arrow Talismans.
He earned thirty spirit stones and sixty spirit sand grains.
After deducting costs, his profit was about twenty-five spirit stones.
In the second year, he used seventy-two sets of talisman paper and successfully created six Water Arrow Talismans, two Water Repelling Talismans, three Water Binding Talismans, two Cloud Rain Talismans, and five Water Escape Talismans.
He earned twenty-two spirit stones and seventy spirit sand grains.
After deducting costs, his profit was about nineteen spirit stones.
In the third year, he used sixty-eight sets of talisman paper and successfully created twenty Water Arrow Talismans and seven Water Escape Talismans.
He planned to go to the Lakeheart Island to sell them on New Year's Eve.
Right now, he had quite a few resources on hand: twenty Water Arrow Talismans, seven Water Escape Talismans that he drew himself, plus the one Zhou Miaoyun had given him, making a total of eight Water Escape Talismans.
He had also accumulated a good number of spirit stones.
After subtracting the spirit stones spent on three Spirit Accumulating Pills, seven stalks of Clear Spirit Grass, talisman-crafting materials, and a new talisman brush, he now had twenty-three spirit stones and fifty-seven spirit sand grains.
He still had thirty-two sets of talisman paper, a full box of spiritual ink, and he had spent seven spirit stones on a genuine, high-quality, second-hand talisman brush that could still be used over four hundred more times.
There was also half a gourd of Abstinence Pills.
Most importantly, Xiao Hei had successfully broken through to the mid-first-tier six months ago. The depth of its magical power now surpassed even his, a fifth-level Qi Refining cultivator.
Without using its Petrification divine ability, Xiao Hei's shell could withstand a full-power attack from Chen Jianghe.
If it did use the Petrification ability, Chen Jianghe felt that no one below the late Qi Refining stage could break through Xiao Hei's defense.
It was just that Xiao Hei's offensive capabilities were lacking. The water arrows it spat out as a mid-first-tier spirit beast were only as powerful as Chen Jianghe's had been when he was at the fourth level of Qi Refining.
Truly pathetic.